Adobe boss: Flash war with Apple is over, but hopefully Android will beat iOS

According to Adobe boss Shantanu Narayen the long-running spat with Apple, and Steve Jobs in particular, about Flash support in iOS is a thing of the past.

Yet we can't help but feel there's a little favouritism going on when Narayen predicts that the flash-friendly Android will achieve market dominance over iOS in the tablet arena, just as it did in the smartphone game.

“What you saw with smartphones hitting an inflection point with Android, you’ll see it again with tablets,” Narayen said in an interview last week.

The Adobe CEO also named HP's TouchPad and RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook as worth watching, both of which also fall on the right side of the fence as far as Adobe is concerned when it comes to Flash support.

The very public mud-slinging match between Apple and Adobe kicked off around the launch of the original iPad last January. Adobe claimed the lack of Flash support on the iPad was due to Apple's inflexibility; Apple said it was because Flash was buggy and a hog on system resources.

The issue dragged on for much of the year, but Adobe has now moved on, Narayen says, though he claims “it’s an argument that the press likes to continue bringing up”.

The Adobe boss says the tablet market will be an exciting place by the end of year, offering real market differentiation and versatility for the end user.

“There will be another 20 tablets that will come by the end of the year that will push the industry in different directions,” Narayen says. “I think the community is vibrant. I’m really excited.”

Lack of flash, customizations, SD card, USB connector and handsets @ different price points will be Apple's downfall. It's very easy to dictate rules when there is no competition, but with Android and Windows catching up end users presented with choice.
It very hard to sell something that is incapable of playing videos from the internet, when competition can do it at third of a cost. I don't like Flash myself, but I don't see anything better available.

Yeah, those are good points. I just said as much in another thread. I just traded my used Palm Pre 2 for brandnew Nook Colour and brandnew Htc Trophy... I would have had to pay 200 bucks extra to swap it for the most basic ipad or iphone 4.
Apple need to 'open up' a bit, and rethink their pricing.
As I said elsewhere, currently here in Ireland, I could get a 16GB Galaxy S2 AND a wildfire s for the price of a 16GB iPhone. Ridiculous.

I'd actually agree with both parties, Apple is inflexible and Flash is buggy and does hog up system resources, but I would much rather see Android succeed and Apple fail.

I found it unforgiving when Apple forced me to install Itunes on my laptop just so I could activate my nephews ipad, He doesn't use it for music playback so it wasn't a requirement for him, but forcing someone to visit their site, download the currect version of itunes, (I orignially downloaded the 32 bit instead of 64 Bit) just so you can use the device you've brought is unacceptable.

Tell me about it... iTunes and Zune are a curse imho. To rely on them to do the most basic things with a smartphone in 2011 is ridiculous.
Those people twist our heads with NFC and cloud services, while clogging up our hardware with bloat-/malware (which iTunes bonjour is #biteme )